I liked the SOTU address. The President has this competitive advantage of relating to people with a genuine "personal touch" that is very difficult for the Republicans to replicate. The Republican response on the other hand was just vague criticism. The Republicans don't seem to have any clue of the real problems and ways to fix them. Marco Rubio, the person who voted against the fiscal cliff bill to raise taxes on the rich was saying he wants to help his neighbors? Just by saying "middle class" in every sentence will not make Republicans middle class friendly over night. Honestly, if Republicans are pinning their hopes on Marco Rubio, who can't even speak for 10 mins without getting dehydrated, the 2016 election is going to be a cake walk for Democrats. And if Hillary Clinton decides to contest...people will know the meaning of "landslide victory".

What does it matter if Marco Rubio needed some water? Last time I checked we all need water to survive. The President said taxes would not go up on the middle class...and sure enough my taxes went up. This "personal touch" does not mean anything to our deficit. He is a great speaker, but he cannot truthfully do anything to help our economy with larger government ideas.

I would like to see Obama get as Hard Ass as the GOP has been and just ram everything through and spit in their faces in the process.......because that is what they have done to him. The country would benefit.

Ted Nugent is an excellent example of why stupid people should not be allowed to vote.

I maintain a great respect for this publication when it comes to it's coverage of most international matters. However, your unyielding love of Barrack Hussein Obama and disdain for most Republicans continues to perplex. Your writers seem to have taken a position of unbreakable support for a man who would see the US diminished and abhors the history of Great Britain. I would look down to see if the waters have risen past your ankles yet as you continue to enthusiastically cheer on a man whose attention is focused far from your shores and the interests of the West.

It's a common problem over here, I'm afraid. Mr Obama is universally loved in Europe - a continent towards which the man is at best indifferent. The trouble is, Obama is such a great speechifier and so intrinsically cool that one tends to overlook just how counterproductive his presidency is to UK/European interests.

3. Mandating sticky wages, I mean, raising the min wage and indexing to inflation. Aside from the standard arguments against it, I'd point out that according to the CBO, only 15% of the wage increases from the last min wage hike went to the poor. The rest? Teenagers and spouses merely supplementing middle-class household income. It's universally agreed that the better method is the EITC.

4. Climate change mitigation. My preference would be cap-and-dividend but the crucial provision is that it be revenue neutral, not a cash cow for pet projects.

5. Fix-it-first infrastructure spending, vocational training in HS, and more college admissions transparency are all good ideas pending cost analysis.

6. Solyndra times 1,000,000, I mean, the Santorum Plan, I mean, industrial policy. It's not like the private sector lacks the ingenuity or initiative to do it. The state can do the education and basic research but leave money-making to the private sector.

1. While Obama certainly wouldn't support it, I would be all in favor of shifting spending out of care for the elderly to pay for universal pre-K. The benefits are high impact enough that the program should be near the top of the list for soaking up the savings from low hanging budgetary fruit.

2. I can't see a bill getting through the House that does more than background checks. Best case scenario would be allowing ATF to keep records and communicate with local police.

3. Absolutely correct.

4. This is a political problem: every economist says cap/tax and dividend is the way to go, but even in the fantasy world where a bill could make it through Congress, such a bill would need all that pork to get votes from conservatives. I'd love a compromise of "cap and then do whatever the GOP wants with the money," but given the entrenched opposition on the GOP side it wouldn't be offered by the Dems or accepted by the GOP.

5. Where I disagree with you is that I think the cost analysis on this stuff has already been done and is overwhelmingly in favor (on the Fix-it side, at least). I don't know of a single transit agency or highway department that isn't furiously using every accounting trick they can to overcome a shortage in their maintenance budget.

6. Only good argument I've seen on industrial centers is that the feds can help regional cooperation for establishing infrastructure and limiting state competition that's done purely through tax offers.

Will the popular Democrat idea that Obama is really a conservative finally die now?
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Well, I can't speak for the Democrats, being a life-long Republican myself. But Obama looked to me like a moderate conservative during his first term. But then, my definition of "moderate conservative" was largely formed while growing up in the 1950s and 1960s. What does your definition of "moderate" look like?

2. I can't see a bill getting through the House that does more than background checks.
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The way around that is to be a cop.
(see: Christopher Dorner)
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13 Cleveland police officers who fired 137 rounds into car, killing 2, expected to be interviewed by investigators todayhttp://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/12/13_cleveland_police_off...
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(Also: search: cop kills wife)
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NPWFTL
Regards

I think you can speak for Democrats, having voted for them for the past 30 years and siding with them on literally every issue except unions.
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I use the modern definition of "moderate." Post Milton Friedman, MLK, Roe v. Wade, and Ronald Reagan. Price controls, ever-progressive taxation, racial segregation, public funding for abortion, and support for unions right or wrong are not moderate.

Except that I didn't vote for Democrats. I generally voted for Republicans or Libertarians, at both the Federal and state levels. I did vote for Obama for President, but that was definitely the exception rather than the rule.
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I do side with some Democrats on some issues. And I disagree with them on others. (Just as I have agreed with you on some issues, and disagreed with you on others.) That is, after all, what anyone who is not a total partisan or a flat-out ideologue does.
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So, can you give me an example of someone that you do consider a moderate politician? (Even if he or she has some positions that don't fit. Just a majority of moderate stances will do.)

1. Education is done by the States. The State budgets dwarf the federal spending on education. Fed educational spending is meerly politicians trying to use children as human shields for the rest of their agenda.

2. Background checks are easy. This is the common ground.

3. As you say, anyone who shows up for more that 5 days on time is making more than minimum wage. Another straw-man.

4. A big waste of money even if it were true. Nobody else will play along. Best to try energy conservation (win-win for everyone and easy to do).

5. Once again, a State responsibility.

6. Let us please keep the Federal leviathan contained to what it HAS to do and as little else as possible. We have created a monster with an insatiable appetite. Should we be surprised by the result?

Most of this agenda is really a State responsibility. Why do we insist on sending our money to the federal government just so we can beg to get it back minus the overhead??? My town has hired a lobbyist in Washington to get us federal dollars. Unfortunately this is a very wise investment and example of how sending our money to the feds increases the overhead of everything.

You didn't vote for Kerry, Gore, or Clinton? You didn't vote Democrat for Senate, House, and Governor?

There's a limit to how moderate or extreme you can be in office. You have to fall within a fairly right range to stay in the party. Either party. If you analyze votes, the one and only moderate left in the Senate is Republican Susan Collins. Scott Brown, Olympia Snowe, and Ben Nelson were the others but they're no more.

There's a limit to how moderate or extreme you can be in office.
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I don't think there is a limit to being extreme.
Especially after reading Paul Ryan's "Path to Prosperity."
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Also, you forgot about Sarah Palin.
But that's more like "Edith Bunker" or "Gracie Allen" extreme.
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NPWFTL
Regards

Nope. Never voted for a Democrat for President before Obama. I didn't vote for Bush II, but didn't vote for Gore or Kerry either. But Bush I and Dole definitely got my votes.
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I believe I have occasionally voted for Feinstein for the Senate; but never for Boxer. And I don't recall ever voting for a Democrat for Governor or for the state legislature. I did vote for a Democrat for Congress a couple of times in the last decade (he is an ex-entrepreneur and businessman; not one of the usual professional politicians). Unfortunately, redistricting left him somewhere else.
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Of course, the California Republican Party being how it is, the Republicans that I vote for in the primary are rarely available in the general election. So I end up going for the Libertarian.
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Thanks for the examples. I would say that they generally fit my definition as well.

I wish the President devoted more time to explain his role regarding the Benghazi incident like he spent his time explaining his role in killing Osama Bin Ladin. Perhaps he could have discussed what difference it would have made if Hillary was more involved. I think there would be much to be learned.

The man feels compelled to talk so much about others, or identify himself with others- I want to know more about him and his role in the functioning of the state. To be honest, I don't really care about his thoughts on everyone elses' shortcomings.

Benghazi is over. Mistakes in judgement were made regarding the security needed at a consulate and four Americans died tragically. People resigned. Recommendations were made to mitigate the risk of this happening again and the State Department implemented all of them.

Not sure what is more disturbing at this point after watching the Right try to turn this into Watergate - the initial misjudgements that lead to the tragedy or the GOP flogging this for three months for political points.

How about a compromise. We'll impeach Obama if we can exhume Ronald Reagans body and impeach him as well for the Beirut marine barracks bombing.

As time moves along, we find that mistakes in judgement were indeed made. Like the judgement to not pay attention to the event as it was happening and instead working on the seating chart for a fundraiser on the west coast. Apparently the President and Sec. Of State thought the whole "Libya thing" was over and everything was back to normal in that country (instead of it becoming an ungoverned country and ideal hub for Al-Quaida (sp?)). It appears that (1) nobody paid attention to this (thereby abdicating their responsibility) at the highest levels for about 2 weeks after the fact (based on the repeating of bogus stories presented as the "cause" of it), or (2) it was a bad time to look bad as Romney was surging in the polls and they needed to buy time till it "blows over".

If (1), why should we believe they are paying attention today to things they find boring?

They were either:

1. Woefully incompetent through the whole event.

2. Initially incompetent and then lying (a.k.a. allowing known falsehoods to carry the day) to buy time for it to blow over during a crucial election.

A few people transferred, NOBODY LOST THEIR JOB, except the ones who lost their lives. The guy who made the "non-factor" video is still in jail though. Score one for the Feds (-1 for the First Amendment). But we should be aware of the fact that the Federal government is immune from accepting responsibility for anything that goes wrong. All the more reason to limit their responsibility.

I don't want President Obama impeached, rather, I want the story aired completely (we just found out "new" info last week). Incompetence is not an impeachable offense in my mind.

I'm impressed by your dismissiveness of four people dying, and scared by the number of people that recommended it. Mistakes were made, and there is strong evidence those mistakes were made at the White House. The Secretary of State had no idea what was going on with her embassies, and the conversation between the President and SECDEF was very brief and almost non-descript. Then, there was the bloody coverup with the video that nobody had heard of before but for whom the White House blamed the disaster on. Nobody died at Watergate.

This is worse than that. There were no "initial misjudgements". The President, the only person with the authority to move military force into another nation, was disinterested, and his immediate lieutenants did little to inform him. The embassy, before the attacks, was very clear before the attack that it was in an exposed position, and during the attack that it was under attack, and yet no response came. The White House had good reason to cover it all up.

And then you drag Reagan into this to justify the current administration's bungling... Insulting!

President Obama tried unsuccessfully in his first term to be bipartisan, "reach across the aisle", but we all remember Mitch McConnell'S statement, "The Republican agenda was to make the President a 1 term President." Why attempt to work with a recalcitrant Republican Party, who's only agenda seems to be obstructionism. Economic disparity is at an all time high in the United States, gun violence is escalating, much to the staisfaction of the wepaons and ammunition manufactures(we need more weapons to protect ourselves) and wages are low. The Republican Party seems to be wandering in the desert, possibly for 40 years, trying to figure out why they lost the Presidential election. They can't seem to realize the changing demographics of the United States. The trend will not reverse itself. It's time the President uses the bully pulpit and public opinion or the middle class will be a thing of the past. Fancy this, people want access to healthcare, good roads and bridges, clean water and breathable air and a government that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and corporations who seem to think "Big Government" is scary, except when they want their tax breaks or subsidies!

Should Mitch fundraise for the President too and campaign for him? The opposing parties job is to better the country by (presumably) enacting their agenda. If you think someones agenda is flawed, do you support it or work against it? This is repeated so often but fundamentally flawed as an argument.

The republicans had been wandering for 2 years with McCains loss, but got the House back halfway through President Obama's term (due to the Democrats over-reach on Obamacare). Time will tell, but only the Democrats can lose to a party destroyed by Watergate in just 4 years.

If you are not afraid of big government, you should be. Big government is much larger and powerful (sovereign) than "big coporations". That said, both parties like big government.

The state of citizens' finances is, although the deleveraging that's occuring there is helpful. Until the interest on T-Bills starts getting up to anywhere near average, the state of the federal government's finances isn't holding anything back.

"the state of the federal government's finances isn't holding anything back."

Directly from the Congressional Budget Office:

"In CBO’s baseline projections, deficits continue to shrink over the next few years, falling to 2.4 percent of GDP by 2015. Deficits are projected to increase later in the coming decade, however, because of the pressures of an aging population, rising health care costs, an expansion of federal subsidies for health insurance, and growing interest payments on federal debt. As a result, federal debt held by the public is projected to remain historically high relative to the size of the economy for the next decade. By 2023, if current laws remain in place, debt will equal 77 percent of GDP and be on an upward path, CBO projects."

-Quoted directly from the CBO's Testimony on the Budget and Economic Outlook

So even though the deficit isn't causing any problems now, it will start increasing 10 years from now? Not only is the deficit not holding anything back now, it will continue to improve for another decade, after which we might start seeing negative effects?

The best way of appreciating social fairness is to personally experience
some social un-fairness - which is not what America's Governing Elite is
overly exposed to...

Take the past 30 years of Free Trade -
Why did American Governing Elite push its $20 per hour manufacturing-based Middle Class into unfair, even suicidal competition with Asia's $2 an hour labor camps? Forget the explanations about "free trade invariably creating wealth for all of its participants", etc...

Instead, focus on a purely metaphorical question -
Would there be Free Trade if its $70 an hour boosters - America's Governing Elites, were THEMSELVES exposed to $7 per hour competition from their Asian counterparts?

Should you force Asian workers to make $2/hr so American workers can make $20? What do you propose to do to make sure they never make a good living and that we make all the money? Good luck trying to keep that up.

Thank you Mr. Economist,
You're clearly ignorant of concepts like LOCAL COSTS OF LIVING and LOCAL COST OF LABOR...
For what it's worth, LOCAL COST OF LABOR is a mirror image of the LOCAL COSTS OF LIVING...

Meaning? Asians work for $2 per hour and Americans work for $20 an hour
because basic Asian COSTS OF LIVING are say, $60 per week per family and
corresponding American COSTS OF LIVING are $600 per week per family...
Get it? Most unlikely... M.

This comment thread is the most banal I've seen on an Economist blog in a long time. There must be something about a State of the Union address that brings out the 3rd grader in us: 'Tis too. 'Tis not. 'Tis too. ...

Barack Obama, look ai the brilliant Italian sociologist Domenico de Masi can help you a template that creates a whirlwind of work, their contribution would certainly, I am optimistic that there may be a creative way realistic.

A lot of moonshine in the speech . . . environment, blah blah, "institutes" blah blah . . . BUT, what about the mimimum wage proposal? Some of the hardest working people I know gross a little over $16,000 a year. Now, this is usually supplemented by the Earned Income Credit, SNAP and the like but, still, would it kill the rest of us to pay an extra fifty cents for a cheeseburger? Yeah, I know the "It will cost jobs argument" but, all the same, those who DO work should not be exploited by the system.

"O" is not a bad president -- he isn't a really good president either -- but he does have a decent heart. And, trying to help those who work hard but dwell at the bottom of the ladder seems a generous and proper thing to do.

It is the same situation here in the UK too. We worry that welfare schemes are unaffordable, that it is difficult to design schemes to ensure that they 'make work pay'. Why not save all the bother and make the minimum wage a living wage, then you can reduce food stamps and welfare, or in the UK, Income Support?

Apparently you really don't know the "cost jobs argument". It is twofold:
1. Raising the minimum wage only accelerates the speed automoation kills those jobs. A lot of work will also be transferred to those who DO work - they'll have to be more productive to keep their jobs
2. The real shame is that most of those jobs are entry-level jobs for young, unskilled workers. Without this first, minimum wage job, the second job becomes that much more difficult to get
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So this president's "decent heart" only proves the saying that the road to hell is paved by good intentions.

I know those arguments. I was CEO of a corporation with hundreds of millions in assets and today I teach Economics. I simply don't believe those arguments. And, if I did believe them, it wouldn't change my mind. If a higher minimum speeds automation then it speeds automation. I watch people in minimum wage jobs and they often work incredibly hard. I think they should receive a living wage. I don't buy the sort of "zero sum'" game conservatives peddle. I am in favor of allowing honest, hard-working people to support their families in at least minimum dignity and with a soupcon of hope. If that causes problems we'll just have to solve them.

Barack Obama, look ai the brilliant Italian sociologist Domenico de Masi can help you a template that creates a whirlwind of work, their contribution would certainly, I am optimistic that there may be a creative way realistic.

"For a president who spent much of his first term courting Republicans without success"? Forgive my ignorance, but I can't understand this line repeated without foundation by the Press. Mr. Obama has had only two years where he was required to deal with Republican legislators. During the first two years of this last Administration, they were pretty much ignored.
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He set up the Simpson-Bowles Commission but threw out their report, not even using it as a framework for negotiation. When Rep. Ryan proposed a budget he was lambasted by the President, once while the man was sitting in the front row during a speech. He made a deal with the Speaker of the House in December to raise taxes (or enhance revenues) and make some cuts, but he reneged when he thought he detected a split in Republican ranks in the Senate.
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Where exactly has he offered concrete proposals? Are we to take the word of White House staffers that he has made many concessions in private and we just don't know about them?

So history lesson: Democrats only controlled the Senate until the death of Kennedy, leaving the last 3 years as time where negotiation was required. The healthcare bill was held up for months in committee while Max Baucus attempted to negotiate a bipartisan compromise. The Simpson-Bowles report never got a vote because Paul Ryan decided that he didn't want it to and pulled himself and two other GOP committee members out, which meant that the report was never sent to Congress for an up-or-down vote.

Every budget/appropriations deal for the past 3 years has involved a compromise between the administration and Boehner/McConnell. It's unequivocal that the administration made a priority of getting bipartisan agreement early on, mostly failed at that, and has since moved in a more partisan direction.

FYI, the Simpson-Bowles Commission did not produce a final report. Because the Republicans on the Commission, led by Congressman Ryan, refused to sign off on the recommendations (on account of some tax increases being included).

Did not control the Senate until the death of Kennedy??? They almost had a filibuster-proof majority when Mr. Obama was elected. Democrats have been in control of the Senate for his entire tenure. What are you talking about?

Did not control the Senate until the death of Kennedy??? They almost had a filibuster-proof majority when Mr. Obama was elected. Democrats have been in control of the Senate for his entire tenure. What are you talking about?

Excuse my ignorance, but I think that Mr. Obama's change in debt calculations includes adding the cost of Mr.Bush's wars and drug give aways. It was when Mr. Obama took office and included those costs, so that the American people could actually see what Bush/Cheney had been putting on the charge accounts that everyone started to sit up and take a look. Isn't that what is really going on here an embarrassment by those who sit quietly by while Bush/Cheney lied and spent their way through the surplus that Clinton left them?

But that is the way it is isn't it, only a black democrat can do wrong, we are to never look to the lies and subversions of the GOP are we. Why do you never acknowledge the diversion, subversion and sabotage the GOP has engaged in during the first term and the basic government take over since the election as though there never was an election. Why do Republicans never acknowledge the massive amounts of money spent to support the big corporations that pay no taxes, that continue to get subsidies and the underhanded way that conservative groups are forcing "anti-freedom" laws through local legislatures. No it is only a blind eye that way and the glare the other way.

Mr. Obama ran his campaign on reducing the deficit and getting out of debt etc but has, much like other things, talked a big game and done nothing if not the opposite of what he ran on. I'm not as upset on the actual spending as I am of the hypocrisy he delivers.

As Obama was campaigning in 2008 the wheels fell off the economy, the largest recession in 70 years. Pretty sure he did not want to start his Presidency continuing TARP, trying to save the rust belt and watching 800,000 jobs being lost every month.
Holding him to balancing the budget in his first term is absurd, considering the circumstances. The peak of the crisis was after he won the election and before he took office.

Well that's certainly a new and unusual characteristic in politics, hypocrisy. Never seen it before, not even in religious right, completely defined and introduced in this administration. Glad you noticed it and pointed it out.

Obama thinks he has found how to negotiate with the Republicans. Putting forward centrist, "bi-partisan" proposals will deemed as leftist by the GOP anyway. Concessions are made and the proposal becomes more conservative in nature.

So, put forward a leftist proposal, give concessions and the proposal should end up roughly being centrist in the end.

Agreed, time to pull the conversation back to the middle.
Proposals to get the conversation back to pre-Tea Party days:
Require gay Boy Scout leaders. Zero out the defense budget. Across the board 50% federal tax rate. Outlaw petroleum. Require a Planned Parenthood clinic in every Post Office. Have the National Guard go home to home and confiscate any semi-auto rifle or hand gun.
The resulting compromises might actually be in the middle somewhere.

Even the IMF -- THE IMF -- which last week said that austerity was damaging, has labeled the US fiscally profligate. A new IMF study looks back at fiscal policy around the world since 1800 and finds that the US was fiscally profligate from 2009-11. The result is in Table 13 of the study:

Obama's proposals have lost the gloss of being taken up in private meetings with Boehner and Reid. Obama will stump and chest-thump but his ideas will be shepherded by nobody Representatives and compete with bad press about the economy and ObamaCare. Obama's social media exploits owed to the sense that Obama was pulling levers like some Wizard of Oz.

I almost forgot: beyond alienating Boehner (and maybe Reid), Obama pushed too hard on ObamaCare, which cost him with his own party.

The sequestor amounts to 85 billion or 2.2% of the budget. I'm hard pressed to believe that anyone could not find 2.2% in the budget to cut. THey don't want to.
Your approach may be right. But remember the Senate is controlled by Dems and the committee ok'd Hagel on party lines. So to get anything through it has to be acceptable to the Dems in the Senate. So the GOP is forced to compromise to get anything done unlike Obama who can sit back and blame everything on Congress which he does well.

It's hard for me to imagine that Obama will be able to change politics for the long-term if his vision of government isn't sustainable and sustainability seems not to be a priority. If he wants smarter government, why has he been nowhere on deregulation?

Not being pithy here, but there's not much low hanging fruit for the feds to de-regulate now. Most of the burdensome regs are at the state and municipal level. The trade proposals should help some, since any deal with the EU will involve opening up more markets. If we accept that healthcare is basically untouchable right now, I'm at a loss for what industries the feds have too heavy a hand in.

It's been hard to put a finger on what Obama actually believes. Part of the issue is that his rhetoric was so inflated during his first campaign that people started believing in an Obama that wasn't realistic. "No new taxes" it was not, but it came awfully close a number of times.
Part of the issue, too, is that the Republican Party went hard, hard right following the Clinton years, and there's a rather large ideological and political gap between the two parties right now; it's not as large as people on both sides would have Americans believe, but it's more substantial than it has been for a long time. I think it's been hard for Obama to find solid ground on which to stand, partly because of the self-inflicted over-inflation of his own ideas, partly because of the extreme nature of the opposition at this point. I think he deserved his second term, considering how much of a mess America was when he came into office, but he's still got a lot to prove.

No, but this is how I'm feeling: The Obama's priority things are all temporary unless we raise enough in taxes or cut enough other spending to pay for them. All Americans who are not afflicted with being Democrats (and many with that very illness) know that the deficit is an actual problem and entitlements are an actual problem. So you solve that by growing the economy as much as possible and fixing the entitlements as much as tolerable and reforming taxes. This is the part I think even Democrats and Republicans can understand and agree with.

But the deficit is important and the president is acting like it's a boundary condition. I think economists agree that the minimum wage is bad for jobs and growth in about the same proportion as climate scientists on global warming. Why do that? I think writing smarter regulations is the only thing in the executive's power that really affects growth. Why not do that? Frankly, even if there is no low hanging fruit, why not say he is going to do it just to make the private sector feel good. He probably knows he isn't going to end AIDS or hunger or correctly price education either.

It seems to me the rhetoric might have been bipartisan but the program is partisan and he's willing to throw growth and the deficit aside for Democratic nonsense and not willing to apply the rare Republican sensible idea when it will help.

I can understand how a higher minimum wage effects job growth and jobs but a higher minimum wage is necessary. You might as well shrink the economy if the wages you're getting paid aren't even liveable in todays world.

If you're a teenager, a first-time worker, or a new immigrant you might need the job more than the wage. If you're a parolee, you might need the job more than the wage. The labor market just doesn't work the way the minimum wage needs it to. It isn't a way to raise middle-class or poor folks' wages.

At the margins, the minimum wage is just as likely to eliminate a job as it is to raise a wage. And nobody much takes jobs that don't make them better off than they were before. The argument against a higher minimum wage is the same as the argument against the minimum wage. There's no way to compare all the harm the law causes against all the good it does, but you can be sure of the harm.

I was just trying to give examples of people who are better off having a job at a lower wage than not having a job at higher one, which happens due to minimum wage laws.